


To Eartha Kitt, thanks for everything, Myron Bolitar

by jasmasson



Category: Myron Bolitar - Harlan Coben
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmasson/pseuds/jasmasson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m not sure you could pull off the tights,” Win said.  “Your ass is too flat.”</p><p>“Maybe with some padding?” Myron mused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Eartha Kitt, thanks for everything, Myron Bolitar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/gifts).



> Huge thanks to M and T for the betas.

***

Myron had never really been a cat person.

He hadn’t been exactly _anti_ , didn’t think they were creepy, or Satan’s minions, or anything, but he’d always pictured a wife, kids and a _dog_ , not a cat. Cats were takers, he thought. Dogs were givers. You could take a dog for a run, maybe, and play fetch, but trying to get a cat to do anything you wanted was clearly an exercise in futility.

He stared at the cat – it was a Siamese and its eyes were as blue as Win’s. It looked as cool and unconcerned as Win, too.

“A dog would go get help,” Myron told it, and his voice was hoarser than he’d like. He coughed a little, wetly. “I really would trade you in for Lassie in a heartbeat, right now, I gotta admit.”

The cat blinked at him casually, and went back to lapping at the pool of Myron’s blood.

***  
 _Three days before_

Win knew a lot of creepy people, it was fair to say. Where he’d met them all, Myron wasn’t exactly sure, but some of them were even creepy professionally, in fact. Like this guy, in his cheap suit, with his slicked back hair and _hey, I’m being inconspicuous, ask me how!_ Ray-Bans. Indoors. In December.

“Yes, but would we have to wear the sunglasses, too?” Myron asked. “Because, you know, I’m not sure I could pull them off with quite the same level of _panache_ as you.”

“Sunglasses are optional, I think,” Win said. “But apparently you’ll have to wear something similar that allows everyone to identify you immediately as a member of the Eff Bee Eye.”

“But what could we use?” Myron wondered. “If not sunglasses, what else to ensure everybody knows how important and incognito we are? I know! Tights and a cape? Maybe a mask? I _have_ always fancied myself as Batman.”

“I’m not sure you could pull off the tights,” Win said. “Your ass is too flat.”

“Maybe with some padding?” Myron mused.

“I could pull off the tights,” Win said comfortably, “I have the ass of a god. But I’m not sure about the mask: I’d hate to have mask-line in my hair.”

“You have so much gel in it, I’m sure it wouldn’t make a dent,” Myron assured him.

Win looked at him in mild outrage, when the guy cleared his throat and pulled off his sunglasses, throwing them down on the diner table, to glare at them.

“The invitation said black tie, so you’ll have to make do with wearing your tights underneath and just showing them off to each other after, sadly for you,” he said.

Win shrugged, “There’s always the bathroom if we can’t wait. I _do_ usually end up in the bathrooms with my plus-ones, it’s true.”

“Hey, I’m not that kind of girl,” Myron said.

Ray-Ban had clearly had enough of their sparkling _repartee_ ; he ignored their comments and he pushed a folder over the table to them.

“There are the details on the man we suspect,” Ray-Ban said, and Myron flipped up the folder's cover to see photos of a man of about fifty, and some typed sheets of information. “Carlton Howard. Fifty-five, married, and the current Mayoral candidate for Providence, Rhode Island.”

The man had the unmistakeable air of old money to him that Win did, but there the likeness ended. He was dark and heavy-set, with full, almost opulent features.

“Over the past six years at least thirty young girls have gone missing from Rhode Island, and probably many more. They were all hookers and fuck knows how many have gone missing unreported,” Ray-Ban said. “Our suspicion is they’re paid to attend some parties, and then... just don’t come back.

“No one’s reporting anything, though, and there’s no evidence, and we can’t question a man like him on the word of a few druggie street girls whose friends may or may not have gone to a party which may or may not have been thrown by him.”

Win had been invited to Howard’s next party, as he received a hundred invitations to Christmas parties each year from the social elite, and had been invited to attend many of Howard’s parties in the past. This was why the FBI had contacted them, and Win and Myron had agreed to attend.

“You realize, of course, that I’ve never attended one of Howard’s parties before, so if there is some... _special_ entertainment it’s unlikely I’ll be invited to witness it this time,” Win said.

“Well,” Ray-Ban said, “you’ll just have to use your spidey-sense to find them, won’t you? Be careful not to trip on your cape.”

“Spidey-sense is _Spider_ man,” Myron said. “Holy Captain Obvious, Batman.”

***  
 _Today_

“Very nice,” Myron said, looking out over the grounds. They were impressive, it was true, with fountains and lights on a lawn stretching away from a large, beautiful mansion. “All this, though, and they don’t have any Yoo-hoo.”

“Yes, I don’t know how the guests will manage with just a Champagne fountain,” Win replied.

They watched as Howard mingled with his guests. Like most criminals, he didn’t look like any kind of monster – smiling and laughing, shaking hands and kissing cheeks. It would be much easier if villains dressed up like penguins, or psychotic clowns.

There were maybe a few significant looks between him and some of the guests, but that just might have been about the really good brandy, or the current price of gold, or something else suitably upper class and mysterious.

Finally, well after midnight, the guests started to leave.

Myron noticed that some of the guests, some male guests, were disappearing, but not actually leaving down the wide, well-lit drive. Howard was still clearly in view, though, standing by his lovely wife. Some of the men in tuxedos who had been standing around all evening, clearly on alert, and equally clearly armed, had drifted away too. They could be no more than standard security for a fledgling politician at a large party, or they could be something else.

“You keep eyes on Howard,” Myron said to Win. “I’ll go see what I can find. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

Win nodded. He leaned against the balcony with a drink in hand and to the casual observer must have seemed far more interested in the view down the cleavage of the women standing beneath the balcony than anything else.

***

The house was enormous, but a man helpfully chose that moment to walk in from the gardens and head towards the back of the house. He, unlike Howard, had an air of _shiftily up to no good_ that Ray-Ban would have been proud of; he glanced around furtively as he walked in the dimly lit places of the house away from the main party.

Myron followed him, in a hopefully slightly less conspicuous manner. He listened carefully as he walked. It was entirely possible that Howard simply employed women to come to his parties – Myron knew a lot of parties Win attended, and even hosted, had offered ladies some remuneration to attend – and due to the nature of the street girls they’d simply drifted on rather than disappeared in some sinister way. If Myron simply heard laughter and talk and even some moaning in one of the rooms at the back of the house, there really might not be anything to this at all.

There were a few things that suggested that might not be the case, though. The women who were... uh... _financially encouraged_ to attend some of the parties Win did were definitely _not_ street girls, but well-paid and high-class, identified through word-of-mouth and discreet agencies, not picked up on street corners, and were right there in the front of the party laughing and shaking their glossy hair and generally adding to the party atmosphere, between occasional and discreet visits to back rooms for some interludes.

On the other hand, this could be fulfilling a particular fetish for the men here – unfortunately desperation in a partner could be quite the aphrodisiac for a certain type of person, but obviously such ladies would not be welcome at the party with society’s cream.

And then there were the numbers. Thirty was quite a lot to have just coincidentally moved on...

As he followed the man, he did start to hear laughter, but it was all from deep, male voices. Myron hoped optimistically for a card game... but as the man he was following opened a door and then walked through it, he glimpsed enough through the doorway; that was no card game.

Myron froze for a moment, deciding what to do.

There were two men in the shadows standing outside the door; large armed men, which would make getting into the room not impossible, but probably impossible to do quietly. Myron had no idea how many people were in the room who’d be alerted to his presence, and more importantly how many, if any, would be armed.

Myron could get Win, or, as had been the plan, phone the FBI who were patiently waiting just minutes away. A phone call from a lost guest who found something unsavory in the house would allow law enforcement to enter without a warrant, which was the advantage of Win and Myron’s relationship with the FBI; they weren’t on the payroll.

But. Myron didn’t want to leave the girl, or maybe even girls. He’d not seen much, but bound and bloodied wrists, matted hair and the whites of wide, terrified eyes were more than enough to root him to the spot for a moment in indecision.

That indecision was costly... and he heard something behind him too late to do anything but turn just enough to catch the blow on his forehead rather than the back of his head.

***  
 _Now_

The cat was close to Myron’s face, watching him unblinkingly as it licked Myron’s blood. It was purring. Myron was apparently tasty. Excellent.

Head wounds bled quite profusely, but generally stopped fairly quickly and so the pool of blood indicated they’d put him here, wherever here was, quite soon after the blow had landed. He was clearly still in the house, then. They’d gagged him and tied his wrists behind his back and his ankles together and to an annoyingly sturdy radiator, before leaving him here alone, although the gag had been easy enough to push out with his tongue.

Amateurs, no doubt, who’d decided the decision about what to do with him was well above their pay grade. They given him a good kick or two while he’d been down, though – Myron could feel it in his ribs and his diaphragm. He coughed again, startling the cat, which ran out of the slightly open door.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered.

He called out, again, as he had when he’d woken up. No one came. They were probably in the darkest bowels of the house.

Myron killed some time trying to wriggle out of the bonds –they’d done a better job with the ties than they had with the gag, unfortunately, and the radiator really was some good quality workmanship...

Myron didn’t know how long he’d been out, but the house was rather large for Win to search thoroughly without attracting attention.

Still... Myron heard a noise outside, a yell and then a _crack_... of course Win was never too worried about attracting attention.

Myron looked at the door, expecting to see Win, but instead the cat came back in.

Myron frowned. “Did you trip someone up, kitty?”

“No,” Win said, pushing the door open and coming in. He looked pristine (he really did use way too much gel, all jokes aside) except for a tear to his cuff and some suspicious, dark splatters on his pants. “But it did provide some very handy bloody paw prints.”

Myron looked at the cat, which seemed to somehow look slightly smug as it sat down and started licking its paws.

“Turned out Catwoman was on Batman’s side for once,” Win said as he reached down to start untying Myron, and then Myron heard the sound of sirens outside.

***

Win had left Myron to deal with the FBI. The room the man had led Myron to had been left open, presumably from when Win had been looking for Myron. The girl had been released when Myron and the FBI had arrived, and there were six men tied together with an array of the bondage gear that been available in the room.

Unfortunately Howard had not been amongst the six in the room, and there was a small chance that his lawyers (and his money) might be able to persuade a jury that this had been going on in his house without his knowledge.

Myron drank from his Yoo-Hoo as Win sat beside him with a glass of wine. Howard wouldn’t know it, but he’d probably be better off in jail.

Win had had a very nasty look about him, when it had turned out that Myron had a broken rib, and one thing that was for sure, was that justice from the penal system was far preferable to Win’s brand.

“Were there only six men?” Myron asked, suddenly, thinking he’d seen at least two outside, there’d been one behind him, and the room had seemed pretty crowded.

Win shrugged.

He was stroking the cat. He'd appropriated her from the Howards’ house, calling her a crime-fighting heroine. He’d named her Eartha Kitt.

Win and Eartha looked at him with the same sharp, blue predator’s eyes. “There were three others in the hallway, too, and one had blood all over his hands. I’m surprised the FBI didn’t find them.”

He turned back to his Champagne.

Myron doubted they’d ever find them.

***


End file.
